I think that this is the 61st post in which i explicitly mention 'online dating', but certainly i've posted more than 61 times about various online dating services? Must…update…Social Networking Services Meta List! I've been so busy doing the editorial director thing here at Weblogs, Inc. that i have been very negligent in updating my long list of YASNS. For example, in the news this evening for online dating alone is: Online dating for golfers, an online dating service that integrates Google Maps, a dating profile verifier, and a safer way to connect. tagged: Online Dating;YASNS;Social Networking ...

As iDate 2005, at the Wyndham Miami Beach Resort, draws near—with double keynotes addressing The State of the (Online Dating) Industry—I  cannot help but be drawn to articles like Aline Mendelsohn's—The frills are gone—for The Wichita Eagle. Is this the end of traditional dating already come and gone? Do you find yourself referring to the new person that you are 'seeing' as the one you happen to be 'hanging out' with right now? Mendelsohn says: "Welcome to the institution formerly known as dating." And, then goes on to say that the term 'dating' is quite likely 'dated'. Does 'hanging out' = 'going out' minus the expectations? And what about 'hooking up'? Is this the stateside version of 'toothing'? Perhaps minus the actual bluetooth connection? Can't say I've used the term 'dating' lately. How about you? ...

Two fraud lawsuits—one aimed at Match.com and another at Yahoo! Personals—have rocked a lucrative industry back on its heels. IN the first instance, the litigant claims to have been courted by a Match.com employee. Match.com produced a sworn affidavit to the contrary. In the second instance, a user of Yahoo! Personals claims to have uncovered a scam whereby the photo of a person matching geographical and personality requirements was emailed to customers in different, far-flung cities. No reported comment from Yahoo!. Perhaps the important reality being uncovered here is that online matching and dating, despite all the benefits it brings to the traditional personal-ad experience, is no silver bullet for loneliness. These lawsuits are certainly fueled by, if nothing else, disappointment. ...

Anthony Vaccaro writes an entertaining piece for the Eyeopener titled—Dates for the desperate?—in which he recounts his impressions of a 25dates.com speed dating event. Twenty-five dates in seventy-five minutes. Wow. It's a great article, you can read it here. Vaccaro quotes Murray Pomerance, a sociology professor at Ryerson, on the reality of online-initiated dating: "...There is this image that people were once outside and happy, and that this dark thing of the media came in and ruined all that…It's a pretty exaggerated portrait…" I agree. At the turn of the 20th century courting couples were having long heated conversations via a series of arduously scribbled notes carried to and fro by messengers utilizing any number of methods of conveyance. Now, wired and wireless networks accomplish that same task via our desk, lap, or palm tops. Vaccaro ends with a quote from his twenty-fifth speed date who waxes philosophically: "I think the Ideal ...

Laura Schaefer who writes a column about sex, for online dating service Match.com, found herself with more than enough material to write a book about this multi-million dollar business of finding your mate—online. However, Laura didn't stop with research and content describing current online dating practices and experiences, but rather reached into the way back machine to include trends in 'Advertising for Love', in the form of personal ads from historical newspapers, from the 1700's on forward. In this recently released book Ms. Schaefer chronicles some of "the best and worst personal ads of all time." What is the best, or worst, personal ad you've ever run into? ...

Looking in on the mobile dating scene, it's still lagging as compared to its computer-based online dating counterpart, but with location-based dating technologies on the horizon it stands to be a sector that will continue to grow. Since we last looked in on Webdate a short year ago, they've grown from 1.25 to 5 million users. SmallPlanet is talking up their Bluetooth-based mobile social application that alerts you when potentially compatible users are within 30 feet of you — which supposedly helps with "getting past that point of pain of going up to talk to someone at a bar," according to SmallPlanet CEO Hunter Heaney. And both Webdate and SmallPlanet are touting location-based dating as the next big thing, which one-ups what you can do with the relatively short Bluetooth range and can tell you when a potential match is just down the street, or somewhere within your zip code. Still, the current market in the U.S. is only about 6 million users versus the 40 million users of regular online ...

Once again, this is my recently updated Social Networking Services Meta List. It is broken down into nine loosely built categories that will continue to shift. These social networking categories are: business; common interest; dating; face-to-face facilitation; friends; MoSoSo (Mobile Social Software); pets; photos; and 'edge' cases or social networking 'plus' sites. The mostly recently added services are marked with an *. Please keep submitting your comments, links, and recommendations for additions and deletions. This list now stands at 380 entries. Thanks... (:= business networking sites Affinity Engines, Appiir*, Business Parc, BusinessPartnerships.ca*, Contact Network, Doostang*, ecademy, eConozco, Eliyon, EntreMate, eXtremeNetworking.biz*, Friendly Favors, GoingProfessional, Growth Company, I'm Not From Here, InterAction, ITmob, ItsNotWhatYouKnow, Join Network PLUS, LLC, Kickstart-Connect*, Konnects, LinkedIn, Link Silicon Valley, matcheroo, Mediabistro, Monster Networking, NetMiner, Netmodular ...

Classmates.com's 2005 'Romance Poll' reveals "...that when people reflect on their love life, about 65% think about their first love or high school sweetheart…" Interesting that. Have you thought about your first love or high school sweetheart lately? You're still in high school you say?! Here are some more highlights of this Classmates.com Romance Poll as published in a recent press release: — 70% of respondents think more people will turn to the Internet to find love in 2005. — 59% of respondents thought of their first love or high school sweetheart in the last year. — 65% of respondents reflect on their first love or high school sweetheart when thinking about their love life. — 26% of respondents had used the Internet to look up or reconnect with an old boyfriend or girlfriend. — 21% of respondents had an online romance in the last five years.  — 18% of respondents had used the Internet to seek a ...

Ah, online social networking. Right now there are 17, 827 people online over at the Bolt.com 'hang out'. Where categories range from Movies & TV to Sex & Dating, Gaming, Music, Style, Sports, American Idol, AIM Icons, Quotes, Ringtones, Game Revolution, Quizzes, Horoscopes, and TAG. According to their about: "...  Bolt is the #1 youth hangout on the Web, bringing together 4.5 million young people each month to exchange ideas about everything from final exams to the war in Iraq. Bolt is the basement, park, college dorm, sidewalk café or the 7-11 parking lot – it's a place where young people come to meet others and talk about everything. Authenticity is at the core of all that we do…" Bolt is located in Soho, NYC and is led by Aaron Cohen, CEO. They recently released a study on 'Youth Happiness' (pdf file link) with the subtext that it "Turns out High School and College Kids Are Actually Pretty Happy" with 67% of 15-22 year olds ...

Being bought by the owner of the Fox empire hasn't scared MySpace away from partnering with Al Gore's high profile film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."  Announced last week but receiving little play in the blogosphere to date, the partnership appears to be more low-key online than the previous X-Men promotion but set to leverage the online community for real-world public events.  The movie's main site doesn't appear to make any reference to the partnership, as it is described on MediaPost, but MySpace friend to all Tom does have a Truth badge and link to the film's MySpace profile. According to MediaPost,  "the campaign will culminate in a 10-city MySpace theater buyout on June 16, with free tickets going to select members of the film's MySpace community.  MediaPost also reports that MySpace is contributing a significant amount of ad space to raise climate change awareness.  The MySpace music channel is reported to be planning  an artist-on-artist interview between ...

Here's another entrant into the growingly crowded space of social calendaring: Planzo bills itself as an "online planning community," allowing you to quickly and easily share your calendar entries via simple cut and paste. It speaks the Web 2.0 lingo: AJAX, RSS, XML, etc., and promises a dead easy interface with one click event creation and drag and drop event changes. The service offers a number of ways to export and/or share your calendar: to yourself as a daily email digest, reminders via SMS, event sharing with contacts on Planzo (including access controls for private events), and and via RSS. You can also customize the look and feel of your calendar. Oh, and, there's a bit of example that lives here... [Via Robin Good] ...

From the same nice people who brought us that dishwasher churning away in the next room comes an exiting new way to visually brainstorm and collaborate with your friends! Ok, so it might not be all that "new," and some of you might not find it particularly "exciting," but dammit, I thought it was cool. Developed by General Electric, Imagination Cubed (hence-force to be known as I^3, for the self-serving purpose of me not having to type it out each time) is another one of them multi-user online whiteboards. As I said, nothing particularly special about that. The cool thing about I^3 that sets it apart from other similar tools is the fact that there are no accounts, and therefore, you never have to go out of your way to make sure your friends and co-workers are registered. Simply visit the site and invite up to 2 other people to simultaneously use your white board. When you're done, you can print your final product, see a replay of what happened, or save the white board for later. I can see this being really ...

Reports are surfacing that solidify a connection between social networks and e-commerce. Not surprisingly, people who hang out together online sometimes talk about shopping, and discuss products, and share recommendations. Some branding efforts are starting to incorporate the building of online community into what previously were static sites. But the door is wide open for the development of dedicated online shopping communities that are explicitly about consuming stuff--but still encourage photo sharing, profile building, and other standard perks of social software. One of these is Yub.com: "Meet. Hang. Shop." It doesn't get plainer than that. Yub incorporates elements of social networking with tricks borrowed from affiliate marketing and multilevel marketing (MLM), all packaged in a sort of virtual Sam's Club. E-Commerce partnerships with such brand heavy-hitters as Dell, Apple, Macy's, Home Depot, Sony, Target, and many others provide cash-back opportunities for network members that exceed 10 ...

iDate 2005 is over and I missed speaking there. In hindsight I am glad that an injured foot kept me grounded this week. As I gaze out at the winter wonderland that the 'Blizzard of 2005' left behind here in the Northeast I am happy to be nestled in my cozy abode. Miami Herald reporter, Jim Wyss writes about Miami-based Webdate, now with 2.8M members. I wrote about Webdate Mobile last July here on The Social Software Weblog. It appears that about 40,000 users now subscribe to Webdate's fee-based mobile service for a mere $2.99/month and Webdate's regular service is still free. Wonder if all of my friends had fun at iDate in Miami? Hope so. ...

When I lived in San Francisco, nothing was truer. Walking around the top of one of San Francisco's many hilltops with my beautiful boxer certainly garnered many new dog-loving acquaintances. Love me, love my pet also often plays heavily into the mix of things—as dating and/or living with someone who might be allergic to your favorite furry familiar could be a fatal faux pas. According to a press release today, Date My Pet, Inc. is offering their members the opportunity to blow virtual kisses this Valentine's Day via video. Wonder what canine and feline delights Ted Rheingold is offering over at Dogster and Catster for this high holy day of unbridled displays of affection—interspecies style? ...